February 2015

February 28, 2015

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been saying so many unexceptionable and precisely relevant things that I suspect any moment now he may even start believing in them. (I had to get the snidely bile building inside me out).

Listening to his reply in parliament to the 2015 budget debate I was repeatedly struck by how exceptionally correct his narrative is. The prime minister made many telling points but none perhaps more so than his distinction between national philosophy/essential vision and ideology.

He then cited two particular ancient Sanskrit verses from the Upnishad to highlight India’s essence/philosophy.

एकं सद्विप्रा बहुधा वदन्ति

That which exists is one, sages give it different names

सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः

सर्वे सन्तु निरामयाः।

सर्वे भद्राणि पश्यन्तु

मा कश्चिद्दुः खभाग्भवेत्।

May all be happy

May all be healthy

May all perceive auspicious

May no one suffer

Even his most kneejerk detractors would find it hard to fault this view in and of itself. One could fairly argue that invoking ancient and broadly inclusive philosophy of the Indian civilization does not really address the disparate and specific challenges of the 21st century. But then the prime minister did also manage to get to the specifics of our time. One of the frequently heard criticisms against him has been that his is a highly centralized, individualized really, administration flowing from the whims and vision of one person—himself. To them he pointed out his belief in a “policy-driven state” rather than a individual-driven one. “A nation cannot run on the basis of an individual, nor can governments,” he said.

Unlike perhaps any of his predecessors this prime minister has a remarkable ability to connect specific policies with citizens directly, right from self-attestation of documents to cooperative federalism. He is able to take policy out of its dreadful bureaucratic confines and showcase it in a manner that his audience can relate to. I have written about this before. On February 6, 2013, when he was still very much Gujarat’s chief minister I wrote this:

“All speeches by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi have a sanguine tone and are loaded with facts as he sees them as well as a comprehensive explanation about why those facts are the way they are.

Subtly and not so subtly he tries to lead you to the conclusion that he is the reason why good facts are the way they are and bad ones despite his absolute best to alter them. However, he is smart enough to cast all success as collective success and all failure as collective failure.

One may or may not agree with his dissertation but it is delivered with such flourish, joie de vivre even, that those receiving it leave feeling compelled about the content of what they have just been told.

As he seemingly prepares for a national role for himself, and by that I mean only prime ministerial aspiration, Modi may have given what in my assessment could be his most defining national speech yet towards that objective. The speech was given at SRCC Business Conclave in New Delhi to close to 2000 students yesterday.

Over the decades I have heard many politicians talk about development, growth, economy and governance but none as detailed and well-structured as Modi. The ability to relate everything to a single individual among his audience is as essential as it is rare among politicians. Modi clearly possesses that.”

That gift was on full display during his parliamentary reply on February 27. So far so good. The question that frequently crosses my mind is this: Can someone who articulates his convictions and beliefs so precisely do so without actually being sincere about them and, eventually, without implementing at least some of them?

Much of what the prime minister says he wants to do necessarily has a long gestation period. Snap judgments will have to be reined in for the next five years but pretty soon in his term a stage will be reached when trends will begin to emerge to either support or challenge his own assertions, economic, cultural, civilizational and moral. Until then it is best to wait with optimism for the sake of the country.

February 27, 2015

The presiding deity of the Nerd world has faded away. In the death of Leonard Nimoy at age 83 the world has seen the departure of an actor who fused logic and compassion so effortlessly.

Nearly 50 years after it was first introduced on Gene Roddenberry’s ‘Star Trek’ on September 8, 1966, Nimoy’s ‘Mr. Spock’ remains one of the world’s most recognizable and perhaps the most aspirational characters. The half human, half alien Vulcan, who used logic like a fine scythe to trim’s his fictional world’s unruly complexities, inspired generations of those who now get collectively called the nerds.

When I first watched Mr. Spock I responded to his character in a manner that would have met his approval—with austere admiration. That there was a character who was so decidedly logical and shorn of a clutter of human emotions was unbeatably attractive. I claim no special insights into or connection to Mr. Spock other than saying that long before I came to know of his “existence” I thought I had many of his personality points. So in some sense I felt encroached upon when I first saw an episode of ‘Star Trek’ in the early 1980s.

There have been hundreds of enduring fictional characters but in my estimation none as equanimous as Mr. Spock’s. It is possible that Nimoy had some of those very traits naturally that he went on to portray as a fictional character. That probably explains why he has quoted as noting by The Guardian Rory Carroll, “To this day, I sense Vulcan speech patterns, Vulcan social attitudes and even Vulcan patterns of logic and emotional suppression in my behavior…Given the choice, if I had to be someone else, I would be Spock.”

I have always thought of Mr. Spock as combining most elements of Sthitpragnya, the ancient Indian philosophical idea of a being innately and inherently stable and centered, someone not given to irrational exuberance. It is also someone who, therefore, ends up being rational and logical.

The importance of a fictional character like Mr. Spock’s and Nimoy’s manifest success in capturing its essence so powerfully is that it serves as a reminder to the human civilization about what an ideal being could and should be. So here is to Mr. Nimoy who nearly became Mr. Spock.

I am not the kind who climbs a mountain or a hill simply because it is there. In fact, the mere existence of something does not even constitute reason enough for its conquest or its possession. So yesterday when four of us stood in front of a barely 500-feet high hill (picture above) climbing it was nowhere in our collective minds.

Excuse my laughably grand expressions here but those are deliberately used to highlight small triumphs of four middle-aged men and childhood friends. Paresh and I decided to begin the ascent rather impulsively. How impulsive you might ask and even if you might not I must tell. Paresh was not even wearing shoes. He had stepped out in what here in India we call chappals or leather strapless sandals.

All hills and mountains surrounding Ghanerao in Rajasthan and beyond were formed by lava eruptions tens of millions of years ago. Known generally as the Aravallis they are among the oldest mountains in the world dating back to between 1700 million and 2500 million years.* To think that we were going up a hill that may have been hundreds of millions of years old was a source of great thrill.

I began climbing first with Paresh following on my heels. A few minutes later my brother Manoj, who was not planning to join, joined even as Jayendra, firm in his resolve to stay in the foothills, remained firm. The ascent was embarrassingly easy with occasional slipping and skidding because of the loose gravel and rocks. Suddenly, I saw Manoj climbing up behind us. Manoj is even less of a kind who does things only because he can.

Less than ten minutes into the climb and the three of us were near the summit. Not that there is any flattering conclusion to be drawn about my athleticism from that fact but I was the first to reach followed by Paresh and Manoj. Just as the three of us were basking in the rusty pink glare of the evening sun, I saw Jayendra appear some 50 feet downhill, looking resolute in his steps. Considering that we were already on top, it was remarkable that Jayendra had managed to rise so quickly. He was in his kurta and churidar and slip-on shoes like leather moccasins.

Manoj Chhaya atop PaMaJaMa

Paresh Pandya

Jayendra Thakkar

Mayank Chhaya

Four friends, all in their early to mid-50s and in varying degrees of fitness, were standing upon a hill which I have now named, with unprecedented cheesiness, PaMaJaMa, an amalgamation of our names. In our minds, we had climbed a hill-ish but conquered a mountain-ish. Defying harrowing odds, which included actual climbing, we had made the summit.

The air atop PaMaJaMa was clean and the light superbly life reaffirming. I quickly brushed aside my brother Manoj telling us that local shepherds and others walk through these hills bare feet everyday to collect firewood even as they mind their cattle. It was a brazen attempt by Manoj to minimize our triumph and I would have none of it. The summit was outcroppings of black rocks on one of which we all sat and got ourselves photographed in the caressing mauve hues of the setting sun.

I had hoped to see at least the pugmarks of leopards which are often spotted coming out of the forest. I was rewarded only with some animal dung. Not being an expert in such matters, I couldn’t tell you whose it was. It was certainly not human.

PaMaJaMa’s altitude is so modest that its base camp has to be at about 5 feet. And yet we are convinced that we can begin to tackle mountains bigger than PaMaJaMa. My next summit will be Girnar in Gujarat, where as you know I am set to shoot my documentary ‘Gandhi’s Song’. Girnar is over 3000 feet high and is way more demanding despite its 10,000 well laid out steps. After last evening, I think I can manage it.

A wide angle selfie of the four legendary climbers

*The figures are a composite of various sources. I am no expert in this.

February 25, 2015

I am spending a couple of days at a jungle lodge in Ghanerao, Rajasthan, with my brother Manoj, sister-in-law Sonali, and childhood friends Paresh and Jayendra. Manoj oversees the jungle lodge and a 450-year-old fort at the edge of a forest that is home to leopards, bears, monkeys, snakes and a large variety of exquisite birds.

On way to Ghanerao

From left Paresh Pandya, Jayendra, Manoj Chhaya

Mayank Chhaya

This morning as I write the post I hear bird calls that I have never heard before. There is of course the near mocking cock-a-doodle-do.The only jarring piece is the dog-bark. Dawn broke today with these weirdly coordinated sounds which I am sure had some musical logic to it somewhere but I did not quite get it.

The lodge building is said to be close to 100 years old and made of solid stone. There is next to no possibility that any of the wildlife can get in unless some windows and doors are left open. Mine were not and yet I found that the glycerin soap in the bathroom had mysteriously moved from the edge of the sink to the floor with very distinct teeth marks. Unless I have started sleep soap-eating, it has to have been something that crawled in. My conclusion is that it was some kind of rodent.

The most memorable gift last night, apart from the easy flowing, mirthful conversations with Paresh, Jayendra and Manoj, was the stunningly well-defined sky. For some reason everything looked closer. The half moon seemed close enough for me to move around at will. Paresh, a fellow physics and science student, said the last time he visited here he could see the Milky Way clearly. That grabbed my attention because I have never seen our own galaxy the way it famously reveals itself across the sky. We kept looking but it never quite became visible. I am going to try tonight one more time before we return to the grind of my work in Ahmedabad and Junagadh.

February 24, 2015

One of the questions I have to research during the making of my documentary ‘Gandhi’s Song’ is when Mohandas Gandhi first mentioned the song ‘Vaishnav Jan To’. As part of that exercise I visited the Gujarat Vidyapeeth library the other day. A particularly helpful staffer took me to the “restricted” section of the library where all the 85 volumes that represent the entire body of Gandhi’s works are kept.

I had the visions of those volumes being kept in a hermetically sealed glass case. So you can imagine my surprise when I was led to one of the many isles of the library lined up with metal shelves. The “restricted” volumes were lined up on three shelves, many of them under fine layers of dust. Their dust jackets were literally that—dust jackets. Many of the jackets seemed tattered and torn. I chose to look past the volumes’ decrepit condition and began going through the index of the volumes.

I got lucky when I reached Volume 7. The index does indeed mention Narsinh Mehta, the poet-philosopher who wrote the song in the 15th century. I have been able to establish so far that the earliest mention of Mehta and ‘Vaishnav Jan To’ was in 1907. I know I make it sound as if I am Robert Langdon, the Harvard symbologist, going through the secretive archives of the Vatican, in Dan Brown’s ‘The Da Vinci Code’. I was anything but that since it took next to no effort to find Mehta’s mention. All that it took was being taken to the “restricted” section of the library by a very helpful and polite staffer and then reading references under M in the index.

February 23, 2015

It is hard to decide which is crazier—Congress Party vice president Rahul Gandhi taking leave of absence from parliament or a Muslim “sensationalist” nailing himself to a cross in a bizarre reenactment of crucifixion in support of Tamil Nadu politician Jayalalithaa? I am tempted to say the latter but on reflection I am going with the former. And here is why.

At least the Muslim man from Chennai, Shihan Hussaini calls himself a “sensationalist”, “para psychic” and “mass influencer.” In more polite circles, we might call him a stuntman. So in short that’s what he is predisposed to do.

In Gandhi’s case, the sabbatical that he is now on is more complicated because we do not know whether it is a son revolting against his mother, in this case Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi, or a man in the grip of profound mid-life disillusionment with self. The uncharitably cruel might wonder why someone who has not done any actual work throughout his adult life would feel the need to seek to do more of the same.

Gandhi himself couldn’t be unaware of the derision and ridicule he has exposed himself to on social media ever since his Congress Party suffered its worst electoral defeat in its history in May, 2014. Unless he lives in a bubble made from nuclear radiation resistant polymers, he should know that he has become a figure of pity-laced humor in many circles.

Gandhi’s stated reason for the leave is that he wants “some time to reflect on recent events” which in itself is not that unusual and is even commendable. What makes it mystifying in his case stems from who he is and has been projected to be—the heir apparent to one of the world’s great political fortunes and a would be prime minister. To fall from that perch and land into the eager arms of mocking mobs ought to have been deeply hurtful. Much of what he is going through, of course, is his own doing. The fault does not lie in some distant exoplanet but in the man and his circumstance. People have noticed that even in his failure he enjoys the luxury of indulgence from the powers that be in his party, mainly Sonia Gandhi.

I am naturally averse to gloating and resistant to the joys of schadenfreude. One takes no pleasure in someone else’s troubles and misfortunes. It would be foolish to expect Gandhi to discover a measure of the passion that Hussaini has displayed as part of his stunt but it might be useful for him to look for something that gives him the edge just beyond familial fait accompli and lineage. If it means giving up party politics and its grind and instead chart a course as an outside activist, so be it.

I hope he is aware of the enormous advantage that his family name lends him for the foreseeable no matter what else he chooses to do. People erode their posterior trying gain a fraction of the kind of brand recognition that Rahul managed by the simple accident of being born in a family he was. He has zero excuse not to make the most of it, even if making the most of it means a life of genuine renunciation.

It is ironic that those who have the natural standing and status in society, no matter how undeserving, are often unaware of its power to achieve the larger good. One sincerely hopes that at the very least Rahul realizes it and builds on it.

February 22, 2015

There is a shot in my upcoming documentary ‘Gandhi’s Song’ that requires some altitude on top of the close to 3400 feet that Mount Girnar rises. With next to no budget, it was a dilemma for me how to get that done. Drone photography was certainly an option but then I was not sure if it would be even possible in Ahmedabad. To my embarrassing surprise I was told by a couple of friends rather casually that drone photography is so last year in India. In other words, of course I would be able to do it.

I have to decide whether I should go with a GoPro mounted drone or look or something a little more sophisticated that can carry heavier equipment. In any event, it is more or less certain that the opening shot that I thought would be impossible with my resources is now almost a shoo-in. The transition from the top of Girnar to the foothill town of Junagadh where the protagonist of the documentary, poet-philosopher Narsinh Mehta lived, is hopefully going to be quite compelling.

Making a documentary about someone who lived nearly six centuries ago and that too a life of enlightened detachment is challenging but exciting. Since Mehta created an impressive body of poetry and songs, much of which concerns itself with the metaphysical and moral, there is considerable scope. I have created a pretty rudimentary composition around Mehta’s much regarded ‘Jagine Joun To’ (When I am awakened I discover). I intend recording it in a week or so. It is just a singer chanting Mehta’s memorable words in a trance-like rhythm with throbbing percussion.

I am sorry if I make it all sound as if I am breaking new ground in the field of creative expression. Of course, all this has been done for more than a century. I am merely getting to it now.

February 21, 2015

What began this morning as a failed attempt to create an idyllic mountain (above) ended up as something indefinable (below).

It is hard to believe that when I began assaulting the top work with some feverish brush strokes it started to look like the one below. Something must have snapped inside me that I did what I did.

Both are essentially the same colors with a dash of rust and ochre thrown in for the second work. I continue to marvel at what mixing random colors can do. The strange thing is I will never know whether you are seeing precisely the colors that I am seeing. The only way to test that is to ask another painter to produce these two and then compare.

February 20, 2015

No matter at what age and no matter how long one has experienced it, the joy of vindication never really loses its effect. I have long done this minor experiment while reading any material—be it an article, essay, poem or novel—where I intuit about the eventual explanation, dénouement, conclusion if you will, of what I am reading.

This morning while reading a piece headlined “The Reality of Quantum Weirdness” by Edward Frenkel in The New York Times, in the very first paragraph I told myself that it would somehow bring up a Vedic reference either along the piece or at the end.

So you can imagine my joy of vindication when I read Frenkel, who is a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, finish his piece with this: “This is poignantly and elegantly expressed in the Vedas: “As is the atom, so is the universe; as is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm; as is the human body, so is the cosmic body; as is the human mind, so is the cosmic mind.”

The idea of quantum weirdness where an electron behaves in a manner that is beyond our limited rational explanation* is intrinsic to quantum mechanics. Whether it is a wave or a particle or both (wavicle) or may be even neither is at the heart of this profoundly unsettling debate.

Frenkel’s piece is prompted by a paper published in the journal Nature Physics. The accompanying extract on Nature Physics’ website says this: “Quantum mechanics is an outstandingly successful description of nature, underpinning fields from biology through chemistry to physics. At its heart is the quantum wavefunction, the central tool for describing quantum systems. Yet it is still unclear what the wavefunction actually is: does it merely represent our limited knowledge of a system, or is it an element of reality? Recent no-go theorems argued that if there was any underlying reality to start with, the wavefunction must be real. However, that conclusion relied on debatable assumptions, without which a partial knowledge interpretation can be maintained to some extent. A different approach is to impose bounds on the degree to which knowledge interpretations can explain quantum phenomena, such as why we cannot perfectly distinguish non-orthogonal quantum states. Here we experimentally test this approach with single photons. We find that no knowledge interpretation can fully explain the indistinguishability of non-orthogonal quantum states in three and four dimensions. Assuming that some underlying reality exists, our results strengthen the view that the entire wavefunction should be real. The only alternative is to adopt more unorthodox concepts such as backwards-in-time causation, or to completely abandon any notion of objective reality.”

I feel like making a couple of points which I have made a few times before in some versions. The argument that there are many versions/facets/ manifestations of one single reality/essence/truth is indeed a very Indian one as well. The notion of many gods as it exists in India is indeed an extrapolation—even if it is unwitting or unconscious extrapolation—of that approach. While it would be foolish to look for specific examples of quantum weirdness in our everyday life/experience, there are flashes of it in our belief system. The idea that there are infinite stories about one underlying objective reality is a fascinating one.

Individually particles may be exhibiting a degree of stunning weirdness but together in any meaningfully large collections or systems such as we see and experience in the everyday “reality” they seem to give up that quirkiness. May be they do so in order that our limited ability to discern can function normally.

That brings me to the second point about objective reality. Is there indeed objective reality or underlying reality to things? I don’t think I will be able to resolve this before my time runs out. May be there is nothing resolve. It is what it is. We all carry our little universes within us. The intellectually stimulating claim to make would be to say that there is no objective reality. There is something deeply disturbing about the idea that there are infinite versions of what we individually call real. I have said this before. When my real coincides with your real, we have a pleasant, agreeable, enjoyable interaction. When my real collides with yours, well, we know what happens then. At its worst we behead each other. Are we living in a system of situational realities and not absolute ones? The evidence so far seems to suggest that. But then who knows what lies beyond the limited horizons of human minds?

* I say limited our rational explanation because there are phenomena across the universe that operate so far outside the rational human explanation that people are tempted to resort to the idea of gods and religions and the divine in order to grasp them. My point is merely because we are not able to explain something rationally does not mean it can never be explained rationally in the non-anthropological realm.

February 19, 2015

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein’s publication of the General Theory of Relativity. Although Einstein completed his Theory of Gravitation (aka the General Theory of Relativity) on November 26, 1915, in the cosmic scheme of things there is no harm saying that by this time in 1915 he had developed a fairly detailed grasp on what became science’s most breathtaking accomplishment.

The idea that only relative motion can be measured was profound in 1915 and remains so a century since. The idea swiftly dismantled Isaac Newton’s neatly deterministic 17th century model that space and time are absolute and independent of motion of bodies in space. Even though I broadly understand it, I have personally grappled with the idea throughout my life or at any rate since the time I began to concern myself with such questions in my mid-teens. On March 24, 2012, I wrote the following piece. Since then I have read Einstein’s slim book “Relativity: The Special and the General Theory” two more times. I reproduce that post to mark the 100th anniversary of one man’s truly awesome intellectual leap (and not awesome like ‘Dude, that’s awesome.’)

March 24, 2012

I am on my fourth reading of “Relativity: The Special and the General Theory” by Albert Einstein. I am no closer to comprehending it than I was when I first read it over 30 years ago. You have to see my lack of comprehension of Einstein’s theory of relativity in the context that I have lived my entire adult life in the mistaken belief that I have a fair idea about physics.

So when I read Einstein’s preface I have got to seriously question my intelligence. He writes, “The work presumes a standard of education corresponding to that a university matriculation examination, and, despite the shortness of the book, a fair amount of patience and force of will on the part of the reader.”

I do have “a standard of education corresponding to a university matriculation examination” as a matter of fact. I also do have “a fair amount of patience and force of will.” And yet I find myself not getting the hang of the specifics of his theory. I understand it at the intuitive level but struggle at the more practical level.

He also candidly says that he has not paid “the slightest attention to the elegance of the presentation.” “I adhered scrupulously to the precept of the brilliant theoretical physicist L. Boltzmann, according to whom matters of elegance ought to be left to the tailor and to the cobbler.”

I suppose that’s where I come in, either as a tailor or a cobbler or a writer. We are all the same after all because we create things that fit either your body, feet or mind.

The purpose behind reading the book again has been necessitated by my enthusiasm to understand the concept of time dilation. While reading about time dilation one frequently comes across what is known as the “Twin Paradox.” It is about an imaginary set of twins, one of whom travels by train to a distant station and returns while the other stays stationary. The one who has traveled and returned would be younger than the one who stayed stationary. That is the general concept. I get it and yet don’t get it. That is my paradox.

I would not say I feel frustrated, but I certainly do feel unhappy that I have not been able to grasp the Theory of Relativity to the extent that I can just write something off the cuff the way I do about a lot of other subjects. As someone captivated by physics it is embarrassing that I have made no headway when it comes to understanding one of the core principles of physics.

How fair did Einstein think “a fair amount of patience” should be? For that matter, how forceful should my “force of will” be to be able to explain the theory to a complete novice and make it comprehensible?

People should remember that Einstein was barely 26 when he first advanced the idea of relativity in 1905. He was only 36 when he wrapped it up.